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Is Giuliani a Racist? Why Blacks and Whites View Him Differently
By Eric L. Hinton
July 23, 2007
Ask many Americans what first comes to mind when you mention the name of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani and most are likely to recount the heroic image of Giuliani, covered in white ash from debris, bravely walking through rubble-filled streets of lower Manhattan moments after the towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
At least that's the image most white Americans are likely to have. The man even received honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II for his role in the wake of the attacks.
But many blacks, particularly those who witnessed Giuliani firsthand during his two terms as mayor of New York, have a different image of him entirely.
As much as Giuliani may have hoped to reinvent himself in those horrific moments after the terrorist attacks, the former mayor had a long, often thorny history leading up to that moment, a history rife with racial divisiveness that soured many black New Yorkers. It likely comes as no surprise to them that his presidential campaign is the only one that is run entirely by whites, as revealed in "Which Presidential Campaign Is Worst for Diversity?" in DiversityInc's June 2007 issue.
And in case anyone had forgotten, a recent article in The New York Times painstakingly recounts many of Giuliani's less-than-stellar moments working with, and in many cases working against, black leaders while he served as mayor. While some dubbed Giuliani a racist for his actions, others said he was simply pragmatic to a fault.
"I never thought Rudy Giuliani was a racist," Fran Reiter, one of Giuliani's deputy mayors, told the Times. "But he was obsessed with the notion there were certain groups he couldn't win over. And he wasn't even going to try."
In a recent Gallup Poll, nearly nine in 10 black registered voters (88 percent) say they would vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton if the presidential election were held today. Only 8 percent would vote for Giuliani. Of course, it must be factored in that most of the blacks participating in the poll identified themselves as Democrats, yet it is still indicative of Giuliani's lack of support away from his white base.
From his leading on a group of drunken cops screaming racist chants directed at New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins, in 1992 to his repeated refusal to meet with members of the black community, many blacks felt at best tuned out by an administration that made no attempt to understand their concerns.
Even the lies told about Giuliani during his term can be telling. In 1997, Giuliani was embroiled in one of the gravest crises of his tenure when Haitian immigrant Abner Louima was sodomized with a broken broomstick by white members of the NYPD. As horrific as that event was, tensions were further inflamed in the black community when word spread that one of the officers involved in the assault shouted out "It's Giuliani Time" during the attack.
The claim turned out to be false. But the phrase lingered because many in the black community felt it captured the mindset of police at the time, given carte blanche by Giuliani to impose their will.
According to the Times, Giuliani rarely discusses issues of race on the campaign trail. And when he has discussed race, as he did with the New York Daily News in 1999, he professes ignorance on why blacks don't understand his methods. "In the case of the African-American community, I understand it really well. There's no point trying to educate people that I'm not a racist any more than I'm not a criminal," he said. "If people can't figure me out, that's their problem."
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